


o gather up the brokenness

by ChancellorGriffin



Series: Welcome to the Rare Pair Trash Bin, Population: ME [7]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Back in the Rover Again, Gay Sex, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rescue, Reunion Sex, Season/Series 05 Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-03-12 06:55:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13542066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/pseuds/ChancellorGriffin
Summary: After six years, Marcus Kane and Bellamy Blake are reunited during a hostage rescue . . . and wind up alone in the back of the Rover again.Sequel to my post-season 3 Abby/Bellamy/Kane fic, but no Abby in this one.  (Yet.)





	1. PROLOGUE: the cross you left behind

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [There's Something There](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7949758) by [ChancellorGriffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/pseuds/ChancellorGriffin). 
  * Inspired by [when you are close to me, i shiver](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745573) by [ChancellorGriffin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChancellorGriffin/pseuds/ChancellorGriffin). 

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“O gather up the brokenness_  
>  _And bring it to me now_  
>  _The fragrance of those promises_  
>  _You never dared to vow_  
>  _The splinters that you carry_  
>  _The cross you left behind_  
>  _Come healing of the body_  
>  _Come healing of the mind”_  
>  \--Leonard Cohen

* * *

  **THREE DAYS AGO**

_They arrive in the middle of the night._

_Heavy, dull, grinding sounds overhead, like a monstrous mechanical earthquake.  Like Praimfaya all over again, the day they stood silent and listened to the walls of Polis collapse around them.  But different this time, sharper sounds, scraping sounds, sounds that send whispers of hope skittering breathlessly through the hallways of the bunker._

_Someone is here._

_Someone found them._

_“Bellamy,” Octavia whispers, under her breath, as she watches the door to the hatch swing open with a deafening clang._

_But it's not._

* * * * *

_It all happens very quickly._

_Octavia and her guards haven't seen active combat in awhile, but with little to occupy them trapped underground for six years, they’ve stayed sharp sparring amicably with each other, and they drive the intruders back out with very few casualties._

_But they do make off with hostages._

_It's absolute chaos in the bunker, a near-stampede to get to the hatch, and in the melee Octavia has no idea who has been lost, or how many.  Everyone is shoving, screaming, calling out names of loved ones.  She doesn't know what to do . . . until Gaia fights her way through the surging crowds to whisper that Indra is one of the missing._

_The door is open, they're finally free, the day they've waited for has finally come.  Octavia knows she should be with them, as they pour out up the stairs and through the temple into the sunshine; but instead she straps her sword to her back, sends Niylah to go track down Kane and tell him he's in charge until her return, and the two warriors set off.  They're on foot, there's no hope of overtaking the intruders' vehicles, but the tire tracks are easy to follow, so Octavia and Gaia make their way out of Polis and through the ruined, scorched countryside to find their missing people._

_They find Clarke instead._

* * *

**TWO DAYS AGO**

_They lose most of the afternoon in the confusion and emotions of reunions – Octavia stunned that Clarke isn't in space, Clarke incoherent with questions about how they got out of the bunker – but gain a good portion of it back by the end of the day . . . since Clarke, they discover, has a Rover._

_Two, in fact._

_As Gaia makes friends with the drowsy Nightblood girl in the back seat, speaking quiet and reassuring Trigedasleng, the other two continue to fill in blanks.  Clarke drives, Octavia rides beside her, and they exchange the sketchy outlines of the stories of their past six years.  They're happy to see each other, but they're each other's second choice and they both know it.  Octavia wants her brother, and Clarke wants her mom - though at least Octavia can give Clarke some reassurances on that point.  But they don't speak the name of the other missing link between them, the person whose absence is so palpable that talking around him is like tiptoeing around the perimeter of a chasm to avoid tumbling in._

_It's nightfall when they finally stop to rest.  The Rover's a lot slower than the the heavy-wheeled all-terrain vehicles Clarke and Madi watched stream out of the prison transport ship (they've been scouting, and can give Octavia at least a little bit more information than she had before about who took her people and where they've gone).  The Eligius Mining Company vehicles were built for the rocky surface of barren asteroids, so the uneven ground between Eden and Polis is nothing to them.  Clarke and Octavia are still half a day out from the prison ship, and they won't overtake them tonight.  So they make a detour back to Clarke's camp, to pick up the second Rover and leave two of their passengers behind for safety.  Madi protests mightily, but Clarke is firm, and Gaia's inner struggle at the choice between fighting to save her mother and staying behind to protect the last Nightblood is short-lived.  She trusts Octavia, and Madi needs her more.  They embrace goodbye, and within minutes both Rovers are back on the road._

_They're driving blind, headlights shut off, to avoid giving the Eligius crew any advance warning of their approach.  They go slow, and their eyes adjust to the dark quickly._

_Which is the only reason they see the escape pod at all._

A comet, _Octavia thinks at first, only half-aware of it, all her concentration focused on remembering for the first time in six years how to drive this damn thing, aching all over again for Helios and the freedom of riding horseback instead of trapped in a metal box. But no, it doesn't have the long red tail of a comet, and it burns with a strangely bluish-white light, and something about it looks desperately familiar but she can't quite let herself believe that it's the thing she wants to believe that it is.  
_

_Clarke gets there first.  Her Rover grinds to a halt and she leaps out to stare with wide, shocked eyes at the trail of light as it grows larger and larger in the sky, finally revealing its familiar shape just as it crashes to the ground less than two miles away from them, smoke rising up over the wooded ridge._

_Another dropship._

_Raven did it._

_"They made it," Clarke whispers, tears in her eyes._

_Then she says his name._

* * * * *

_He's the last one out of the escape pod, the last one to make his way across the scorched circle of smoking gravel to where their two long-absent friends stand waiting.  Hugs, tears, laughter, confusion – Monty demanding to know how Clarke kept two Rovers working all by herself, Octavia marveling at the sight of Echo in a flightsuit – then silence as Bellamy Blake steps out onto the earth again and sees his sister and best friend for the first time in six years.  
_

_He can hardly speak, to either of them, though his arms hold them close and tight, and only the way his jaw clenches and unclenches wordlessly indicates how hard he's working to keep his wits about him.  He stares at them like they're ghosts, like he can't believe they're real, like there's a chance he thinks he hit his head too hard on reentry and there's a chance he's imagining all this.  
_

_But he isn't.  They're here.  He's home._

_“It’s good to see you,” Clarke tells him, voice low with emotion as his arms grip her tight._

_“I thought you were dead,” he whispers hoarsely into her hair.  “For six years.  I thought you were dead.”_

_“Well, I’m not,” she says briskly, swallowing back her own tears.  “And we have a job to do.”_

* * *

  **YESTERDAY**

_“Stay low,” Bellamy murmurs, without taking his eyes off the scope of the rifle.  “Clarke, O, you’re with me.  Raven, Murphy, keep to the treeline.  Soon as you see us, get to the Rovers and get ready to drive.  We don’t know how many hostages they have.”_

_“Rendezvous back at the dropship?” Murphy asks.  “Or Clarke’s camp?”_

_Bellamy shakes his head.  “They’ll track us.  We’ll need to split up.  O, you’ll go with Raven, back to the bunker.  If they’re coming back, we’ll need to be ready for them.  We’ll send anyone who needs medical attention back with you.  I’ll take anyone who can fight, and we’ll draw them off with false tracks.”_

_“There’s a shallow creek over that ridge,” Clarke suggests.  “Caves a mile or two down it, big enough to drive the Rover straight in.  You can lose them that way.”_

_Bellamy nods in approval of the plan.  “We go in fast and quiet,” he cautions them.  “We don’t kill unless we have to, but we’re not leaving any of our people behind.  Got it?”_

_"Got it," says Raven, speaking for everyone, and they all prepare to move._

_Then, as one, they all freeze._

_It happens just as they're beginning to make their careful way down the thickly-forested slope towards the ship.  The central doors slide open with a heavy mechanical creak that stops everyone in their tracks . . . though the sound isn't half as startling as what happens next._

_A long line of figures with hands bound behind them and black canvas hoods tied over their heads are shoved roughly out the door and down onto the grass by a squadron of heavily armed guards._

_They're too far away to hear anything the guards are saying, but they don't need to.  The leader speaks, the others follow his orders, and the prisoners are shoved roughly down onto their knees._

_"No," Raven whispers.  "Fuck.  Bellamy, that's a firing squad."_

_"Indra!" Octavia hisses, pointing at a familiar leather-clad silhouette at the end of the line, struggling mightily against the iron grip of a huge, burly prison guard holding her in place.  "Gaia was right.  They have Indra."_

_But neither Clarke nor Bellamy are listening to her.  They're both transfixed by the same devastating sight, hearts in their throats, staring with blind panic at the far end of the row nearly a dozen bodies away from Indra, where a slight, still figure in gray jeans kneels in the mud.  Bellamy swallows hard as he stares at the honey-colored hair he wasn't sure he'd ever see again, tumbling loose and tangled out of the back of a black executioner's hood._

_“That’s her,” Clarke breathes hoarsely, voice trembling.  “They have her.  That’s my mother.”_

* * * * *

_Everything goes sideways after that._

_Clarke takes out the three guards nearest the prisoners in three clean shots, with an effortless neatness that reveals more than anything she's yet said about what the past six years have been like, covering Octavia as she sprints out of the woods with swords drawn to make her way straight to Indra's side.  She slashes open the older woman's wrist bindings and slashes open the hood with her dagger, tossing a spare weapon to Indra, which immediately improves the group's odds.  Another handful of guards stream out of the ship to meet the attack; Bellamy stays hidden as long as he can, giving Octavia and Indra cover with sniper fire, and it works better than expected; the doors slam closed again. They won't be getting in to take out the enemy leaders, but no one else will be coming out, either.  They've clearly decided to cut their losses; the guards left outside at Indra and Octavia's mercy are clearly now on their own._

_Raven roars in without waiting for the signal, slamming her foot on the gas pedal the second she spots a guard aiming for Clarke's head.  The distraction of an entirely unexpected vehicle barreling down towards them causes the guards to leap out of the way, and the chaos buys Octavia and Indra enough time to start shoving hostages into the back of the Rover.  No one had reckoned with this many guards, or with doing this all in the open air, so Bellamy's orderly plan about dividing up prisoners between both Rovers goes up in smoke right away.  It's pure chaos.  But it works in their favor; they don't know how long they have until the doors open and reinforcements swarm out, but for now every guard they can see is on the ground._

_Abby's the last in line, and Indra makes one last pass through to collect the fallen guards' rifles as Clarke rushes to her mother, slicing open the plastic shackles binding her wrists and pulling her hood off, wrapping her in a quick, desperate embrace.  Bellamy can't hear what she whispers into Abby's ear, but sees the older woman give a brief, dazed nod,_ I’m okay, _as she kisses her daughter's hair, eyes shining with tears.  
_

_"Abby, get in!" Octavia calls out, holding open the Rover door, and as Clarke finally, reluctantly releases her mother so Octavia can help her into the back of the vehicle, Abby looks up for the first time and sees Bellamy standing there._

_Time stops._

_It all feels so much longer ago than six years, and so much has happened since then; but the moment Abby Griffin's eyes meet his, Bellamy's heart turns over inside his chest, and it's like no time has passed at all._

_He can't say anything, and neither can she, though he imagines he sees her lips move and form the shape of his name._

Bellamy.

_She's alive.  She's here.  He came for her.  He wasn't too late._

_She's as beautiful as he remembered, but different in unexpected ways: streaks of gray in her hair, a black leather jacket that looks like something Octavia would wear, a holster around her thigh that looks like it once held a handgun.  Not the Abby he remembers.  He wonders what the last six years have been like for her._

_But they'll have all the time in the world for that later._

_Her mouth is the same, her mouth is exactly as he remembered it, and he suddenly can't stop himself from taking a step towards her, very plainly thinking about kissing her, not caring about Octavia or Clarke or Indra or the prison ship behind them or the bodies of dead guards scattered everywhere._

To hell with it, _he thinks, which is why he doesn't see the last guard rise up from the ground and pick up the one rifle Indra missed._

* * * * *

_Four things happen at once._

_The bullet leaves the rifle in what feels like slow-motion, and Abby goes down._

_Indra whirls around with lightning-speed reflexes, spots the guard who fired the shot, and hurls her small, wicked dagger straight into his throat.  He goes down too, and doesn't move again._

_Clarke screams "Mom!" and drops her rifle, racing over towards her._

_Then, startling them all, an engine revs behind them and the second Rover barrels out of the woods as Murphy screeches to a halt in front of Abby’s fallen body, leaping out to pick her up in his arms like she weighs nothing at all.  “Keys are in the ignition!” he calls over his shoulder to Bellamy as he and Octavia lift Abby into the crowded back of the Rover.  “I’m going in this one, we have to get her back to the bunker.  Looks like a surface wound, but I don't want to extract a bullet without proper medical supplies.  And if I fuck it up, Jackson will probably kill me.”_

_Clarke stares at him blankly, and he chuckles.  "Someone had to take over Medical on the Ark," he shrugs.  "I spent six years sitting at Abby's desk.  I think I picked up at least a couple things.  I'm pretty good at pulling teeth, actually.  Ask Harper."_

_“Murphy –"_

_"I'm coming with you," he interrupts her firmly.  "In case you need a second pair of hands.  We'll get her back to Jackson in one piece, I promise.  Raven drives fast.  Now get the hell in."  Then he yells "Shotgun!" and jumps into the front seat beside Raven._

_Clarke and Bellamy exchange one final look as she finally climbs into the back of the Rover beside her mother and closes the door.  Alone now save for his sister and Indra, he watches helplessly as the vehicle sped away, racing back towards Polis._

_She has Clarke, Murphy and Raven, he thinks to himself, and she's on her way back to Jackson and Kane.  She'll be fine.  She doesn't need him.  She's going to be fine._

_But still.  But still._

_“Gaia?” Indra demands roughly, gripping his forearm and startling him back to the present._

_“She’s fine,” he reassures her.  “She’s back at Clarke’s camp.  We’ll take you there.  Jump in, let’s go.”_

_“Not yet,” Indra says, shaking her head, “there was another captive.”_

_“What?”_

_"Someone who came in with us - a man, I think, but everyone's faces were covered.  I could hear, in the room where they kept us, but not see.  But a few hours ago they came for one of us, and one guard said to another that they were taking him out to the woods.  I believe," she adds grimly, "that he was being tortured."_

_“Jesus,” murmurs Octavia in horror.  “One of ours?”_

_Indra nods.  “I don’t know who.  But they had us all in one room, and then they came and took one away.”_

_Bellamy looks from the sea of fallen prison guards to the sealed-up ship behind them.  Whoever is inside, they’ve clearly decided that it's not worth losing any more of their own until they can regroup; they surely outnumber him and his friends, yet they didn't risk opening the door back up to send out reinforcements.  They left the execution squad outside to die._

_Which means whoever took the last prisoner out into the woods is probably alone too.  No one is coming to rescue him._

_“Come on,” he says to the two women.  “Let’s go.”_

* * * * *

_He’s half right, as it turns out._

_The torturer is alone, his Grounder captive bound to a nearby tree, slumped halfway to the ground, his whole body limp, the now-familiar black hood obscuring his face.  The guard is kneeling, bent over a wicked-looking metal box of torture implements.  Some are already covered in blood, making Bellamy feel sick._

_Octavia is quick and quiet and slices open the guard's throat before he even has time to make a sound beyond one last burbling cough as he falls over.  Indra makes her way to the tree to saw loose the captive's bindings and carry his barely conscious body back towards the Rover._

_But they aren't alone for long._

_The slow grinding creak of the prison ship doors sliding back open causes them to freeze in their tracks, panic surging through all of them . . . which only increases at the roar of motors._

_They weren't retreating, then.  They were merely regrouping.  And now they're back, with reinforcements and faster vehicles and more guns._

_“Shit,” Bellamy mutters.  “Shit, shit, shit.”_

_“We’ll split up,” announces Octavia, opening the back of the Rover to retrieve the heap of stolen guard rifles as Indra and Bellamy carefully hoist the unconscious body inside and close the door.  Bellamy would like to untie him, but there isn't time.  “Indra and I will draw their fire.  We can evade them much more easily on foot, and we’ll keep them away long enough to give the others a head start.  You go to the creek, like Clarke said.  Make for the caves and wait it out, then come meet us at Clarke’s camp.  We’ll wait for you there.”_

_Bellamy hates everything about this plan – Octavia on foot, chasing armed enemies through the forest to deliberately draw their fire, Abby bleeding out in the back of a Rover without nearly enough of a head start to make it back to the bunker unless Octavia's plan works._

_But the engines are roaring closer and there's no other option, so he hugs his sister, sends her on her way, and leaps back into the Rover to speed off towards the creek._

_The prisoner doesn't speak the whole drive, and Bellamy only knows he isn't dead because of the faint groans of pain every time the tires hit a rough patch and jolt to a halt.  “I’m sorry,” he says helplessly, every time, “I’m doing the best I can.  It’s this or get shot.”_

_Through the black canvas hood there wasn't an opportunity to cut loose, Bellamy thinks he hears a mumbled “’s a tossup,” which makes him laugh._

_“You’re going to be okay,” he promises, with more encouragement than he feels, as they clear the woods and the wheels of the Rover rumble down the rocky terrain to the shallow creek Clarke promised would lead them to safety.  “We’re almost there.  You’re gonna be okay.”_

_The prisoner says nothing._

Please don’t be dead, _Bellamy prays silently over and over, as he drives as fast as he can, which is much slower than he wants, over the bumpy rough ground of the streambed, watching the massive caves in the distance grow closer and closer._ Please.  Please.  Please.

_The caves are just as Clarke promised, with a yawning wide mouth that leads straight up from the stream bed and curves around deeply enough to obscure the Rover completely.  As long as the warm overhead sun dries out the wet marks of tire tracks before anyone gets too close to see them, they'll be safe here._

_When Bellamy opens the back of the Rover, the Grounder inside is lying on his back, completely still.  His canvas shirt is bloodstained in places where Bellamy can see that tiny, wicked little incisions were made all over his torso at his body's most sensitive spots, to inflict maximum pain.  Nipples, forearms, collarbone.  He can't repress a shudder of revulsion at the diabolical creativity involved.  Shallow wounds, already beginning to dry and close up, though probably in need of cleaning, but nothing he needs Clarke or Jackson for.  
_

_"Hey," he says gently, pulling the utility knife out of his boot and kneeling down to carefully saw through the plastic cord binding the man's wrists together above his head.  "Hey.  It's okay.  I'm a friend.  You're safe now."_

_The man doesn't move, arms still outstretched, like he can't move them without assistance.  Bellamy lifts the left one and lowers it back towards the man's side, then reaches for the right and is met with a howl of pain and a full-body convulsion._

_The whole shoulder has been dislocated._

_"Okay," he says reassuringly, placing a hand on the man's chest to still him, "okay, one thing at a time.  Hold still, I'm going to cut this thing off your head, but you can't move.  My knife's right at your throat and I don't want to nick you with it."_

_Nothing.  He's not sure the Grounder can even hear him.  Maybe he heard him wrong in the Rover, maybe he only speaks Trigedasleng._

_He saws carefully at the heavy, brutal rope tied tight enough around the man's neck that he knows it must be slowly choking him.  Sure enough, as the last strands snap loose, he hears the man draw a deep, ragged, gasping breath._

_Then, “Bellamy,” croaks a hoarse, rasping voice, and the whole world stops moving in its tracks.  “Bellamy.”_

_Bellamy drops the knife, the sound landing hard and knocking the air out of his lungs, like a punch straight to the stomach._

_He's not in Polis, keeping the bunker together in Octavia's absence and waiting for Abby to return.  He's_ here, _with a dislocated shoulder and cuts all over his body and Grounder clothes.  
_

_It's him._

_It can only be him._

_Even at barely above a whisper, Bellamy knows that voice; it still sends heat coursing through his veins just as it always has._

_The rope comes loose and he tugs off the black canvas hood and suddenly there he is.  Hair much longer, matted and tangled, face bruised and dirty, eyes dazed and barely conscious, but real and alive and beautiful and_ right here, _and Bellamy feels vomit begin to rise in his throat at the thought of how close they came to losing him without even knowing it, how slender the gap was between just in time and too late.  
_

_"It's you," mumbles Marcus Kane dazedly, reaching up with a bruised, bloodied hand to cradle Bellamy’s cheek with confusion and tenderness and wonder.  “I knew it was you.”_


	2. the cruelty or the grace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Behold the gates of mercy_  
>  _In arbitrary space_  
>  _And none of us deserving_  
>  _The cruelty or the grace_  
>  _O let the heavens hear it_  
>  _The penitential hymn_  
>  _Come healing of the spirit_  
>  _Come healing of the limb”_  
>  \--Leonard Cohen

**NOW**

Bellamy Blake had spent the past six years of his life wondering what he would say to Marcus Kane if he ever saw him again.  He’d gone over the moment so many times in his mind that he’d begun to feel as though he’d already lived it a hundred different ways. So many things to ask – about Octavia, about Abby, about how their lives had unfolded an entire world apart from each other over this long absence.  So many stories to tell.

So many things to apologize for.

The entirety of their relationship had been built upon a foundation of things left unspoken, whether because they were too painful to acknowledge or because there hadn’t been time; but six years of lying awake at night, staring up at the ceiling, gave Bellamy plenty of time to imagine the moment of their reunion, going over it and over it in his mind, considering all the things he might say.

But somehow, the only thing that came out of his mouth, as Kane’s bruised hand cupped his cheek and he felt the older man’s touch for the first time in six years, was “You need a haircut.”

Kane’s bleary, unfocused eyes sharpened for a moment, a flash of their old warmth returning, and he let out a weak, rusty chuckle, though it seemed to pain his throat and ribs. “You too.”  His fingers brushed over the dark, coarse rasp of Bellamy’s beard, making the younger man shiver.  “I like this, though.”  Then something changed, deep inside his brown eyes, affection hardening into something like confusion, maybe even fear.  “You didn’t have a beard yesterday,” he muttered, pulling his hand back and shaking his head as though trying to think.

“Yesterday?”  Bellamy felt a flutter of panic deep in his gut and tried to swallow it back down.  “No, Kane, you mean I didn’t have a beard the last time you saw me.  Do you remember how long ago that was?  Do you know how long it’s been?”  But Kane didn’t seem to hear him, looking wildly around as though finally realizing he recognized none of his surroundings.  He struggled to sit up for a moment before his arm gave out and he yelped in pain, Bellamy reaching out just in time to lower him gently back onto the metal floor of the Rover.  “Don’t move,” he told the older man, “you still can’t put any weight on that shoulder.”

“What is this place?”

“Okay, Kane, I need you to listen to me, I need you not to panic . . .”

“This looks like the Rover . . . am I in the Rover? These aren’t my things.”

Bellamy placed a firm, gentle hand on Kane’s good shoulder to keep him from sitting up again.  “It’s okay,” he said softly, soothingly, like he used to do with Octavia when she had nightmares.  “It’s okay.  You’re okay.  You’re safe.  Everyone’s safe.”

“How are you here? Where am I?”

“The people in the prisoner transport ship broke into the bunker,” Bellamy told him.  “Do you remember?  They took hostages.  We came to get you back.  Everyone else is safe and on their way back to Polis.”

“Abby,” he exclaimed suddenly, struggling to rise again, forgetting the pain in his shoulder until he tried to push himself back upright and winced sharply again.

“You gotta stop doing that,” Bellamy told him crossly, but slipped his arm around Kane’s waist to carefully, gently lift him into a sitting position.  “Don’t worry about Abby.  Clarke and Raven have her.  They’re headed back to the bunker with everyone else.  All the hostages.  Everyone’s safe.”

It seemed wisest not to mention the bullet.  It would do nothing but distress him, and his grip on reality was already tenuous.

Besides, Jackson would come through.  He always did. 

Abby was going to be all right.

“Octavia,” Kane whispered. 

“She’s with Indra,” said Bellamy, which wasn’t an answer but it also wasn’t a lie.  It seemed to satisfy Kane, though, whose focus had shifted back to Bellamy, staring in puzzlement at the younger man’s face as though he were suddenly losing the capacity to recognize him.

“You’re supposed to be in space,” he murmured, a little dazedly.  “Did you come back early?”

His words were starting to slur, causing Bellamy’s heart to contract a little with worry, and he tugged up the now-bloodstained shirt to examine the constellation of cuts and bruises marring the caramel-brown skin of Kane’s torso, prodding lightly at the dark patches as the Griffin women had taught him to do.

“No  . . . internal . . . bleeding,” Kane mumbled, answering the question before Bellamy asked it.  “’s a professional.  Very proud of himself.”

Bellamy felt his whole body grow incandescent with rage.  Maximum pain, with minimum long-term damage.  So the bastard could keep going as long as he liked, without his victim dying on him and ending the fun.

“Well, he’s dead now, if that helps,” Bellamy informed him.  “Octavia took him out.  She’ll be extra glad she did, now that she knows it was you.”

“Sorry . . . she can’t . . . kill him . . . again,” Kane croaked out, eyes drifting closed.  “She’d like that.”

“Kane,” Bellamy whispered, slapping his face lightly.  “Kane.  Stay with me.”

“Shoulder,” the man mumbled, in a brief flash of lucidity, traces of his familiar, pragmatic voice flashing through just for a moment.  “Can’t . . . keep . . . putting it off.”

“It’s gonna hurt like hell,” Bellamy cautioned him grimly.  “And you can’t scream.”

“Won’t.  Promise.”

“Okay,” said Bellamy, balling up the sleeve of Kane's coat and holding it up to his mouth.  “Bite down on this.”  Then he reached down, gripped tightly, took a deep, steadying breath, and snapped the joint back into place.

Even muffled by wool and leather, Kane’s cry of pain echoed against the metal walls of the Rover, so it was almost a blessing that he immediately passed back out again.  Bellamy caught him before he went down, easing his head gently back down against the cold steel floor.  He ran deft, questing fingers through Kane’s thick brown hair – flecked with gray, now, he couldn't help noticing – to press lightly against his skull, checking for damage, and was immeasurably relieved to find no bumps or contusions and not a trace of blood.  Whatever miseries the man had suffered, head trauma, at least, was not one of them.  All in all, it seemed safe enough just to let him sleep.

* * * * *

The rain must have begun at some point after they'd driven into the cave, though from this deep inside, Bellamy hadn't heard it.  He had no idea they'd trapped themselves in the middle of a thunderstorm until he went back to the mouth of the cave to scout.  This eliminated a few dangers, but created others.  On the one hand, any traces of the Rover were now thoroughly erased, and Octavia and Indra’s tracks would be covered too, which made him breathe quite a bit easier.  On the other hand, the streambed had already begun to swell and the waters were rising well past the height of the Rover’s tires.  There was no way out of this cave until the storm died down and the water level returned back to normal.

For the moment, at least, they were stuck.

But Bellamy was fairly sure that, if the water was too high for the Rover to pass through, it was equally too high for the prisoner’s ATVs, which meant their enemies were equally trapped on their own side of the river until the storm died down.  That gave the convoy of hostages racing back to Polis a much more solid head start.  For the moment, it seemed, everyone was safe. 

He didn’t like being so far away from Octavia and Abby and Clarke with no way to reach any of them, but there was nothing to be done except wait. 

So he did.

Hours passed.  Bellamy attempted to fill the time by checking on his patient and setting up camp inside the cave for the long haul, knowing they would be here at least another full day.  Clarke had cleared some, but not all of her belongings out of both Rovers to make room for the hostages, but she hadn’t bothered to empty out the storage compartment beneath the floor of the truck’s bed, where Bellamy found a few old metal canisters for water, strips of dried meat and fruit, and two faded, worn blankets.  There were a few scattered heaps of sticks and leaves around the entrance to the cave that had blown in with the winds over time, and though most of it was damp, not all of it was, and he managed to assemble enough for a small fire; the smoke was a risk, he couldn’t leave it going all night, but it would last long enough for him to boil some water.

Kane didn’t wake up, though Bellamy made him as comfortable as he could.  He folded up the leather Grounder coat to use as a pillow, gently lifting the man’s head to slip the rectangle of fabric beneath the base of his neck, letting his hands linger a little longer than they should in the soft tangle of dark, sweat-matted hair.  He looked so different like this.  The cold, pale, severe Councilor in his crisp black uniform who had come to arrest Aurora Blake was unrecognizable in the leather-clad, scarred, bearded Grounder in front of him.

_“You floated my mother.”_

Bellamy swallowed hard, guilt constricting his chest, and could not look at the man’s face anymore.  He busied himself with practical matters, pulling off Kane’s boots and socks, then his gun holster, then – with hesitant, trembling fingers, unable to silence erotic muscle memory – his belt.  But there was no time for those thoughts, now.  He didn’t have Abby or Clarke, so he would have to be the doctor, and right now he had a patient to tend.

There was no way to remove Kane’s bloodstained shirt intact without disturbing his bad shoulder, so Bellamy simply sliced it open, tearing off whatever clean strips he could find to serve as makeshift washrag and bandages.  The cuts on his chest were plentiful, and the caked rivulets of blood streaming from them were an ugly sight; but none were deep, and all would heal clean.  “A professional,” Kane had said.  The white-hot knot of rage surged back up inside Bellamy’s chest again as he carefully daubed the steaming wet cloth over the wounds to wash the blood away.

 _How fucking_ dare _he._

He only wished Octavia had killed the man slower.

But he felt better, after the job was done.  All the bleeding had stopped, and the bruising across Kane’s torso, while certainly painful, avoided any major organs.  His breathing was regular, and his color was good.  No sign of fever or infection, and his wounds were now clean and dry.  He would be stiff and miserable when he woke, but he would _live,_ and right now that was the only thing that mattered to Bellamy.

Abby would be proud.

He sat for a long time, back braced against the cold metal walls of the Rover, watching Marcus Kane sleep.  He used to love doing this.  Kane was so _vulnerable_ in slumber, all defenses gone, and the contrast had always been fascinating to Bellamy.  Abby caught him at it sometimes, coming back from a late-night shift and climbing, freshly showered, into bed, pressing a kiss against Bellamy’s shoulder and startling him back into the present as he watched a soft, sated Kane contentedly snoring away.  “He’s a lot cuter when he’s unconscious, isn’t he?” she would remark teasingly as her warm body pressed up against Bellamy’s.  “Let him sleep, honey. Come over here and pay attention to me for a little while.”

He’d always liked watching Abby sleep too.

Six years was a long time, and everything was different, and Bellamy knew he had no right to hope they could simply rewind the clock and start over again, the way things used to be before everything fell apart.  And it felt shameful, somehow, to ask for anything like comfort for himself, on a day like today, when everyone he loved had found themselves in danger.  But he still couldn’t stop himself from doing what he did.

Boots, belt, jacket came off and were set aside; then, after a hesitant moment, his jeans as well.  Clad in nothing but his soft cotton t-shirt and shorts, he lowered his body gently down onto the cold metal floor beside Kane’s, draping Clarke’s thin blanket over both of them.  He let his arm rest lightly across the bare, clean skin of the other man’s chest, and fell asleep to the sound of Marcus Kane’s heartbeat for the first time in six years.

* * *

  **SIX YEARS AGO**

_It’s not the same with Murphy._

_Or with Raven, or Echo.  (Or, after one night of particularly bad moonshine, Murphy and Emori together.  Six years is a long time for half a dozen people to be trapped in the sky with nothing to do.)_

_It’s like scratching an itch, or perhaps more like massaging the knots out of sore back muscles after a long day.  It feels good, sometimes_ really _good, but his heart’s not in it and they’re only about three months in before Raven gets drunk and spills to Harper and then everybody knows why._

_(Emori was in the City of Light too, which means Emori also knows about Bellamy and Abby and Kane and everything that happened between them; the crucial difference, of course, being that Emori doesn't care.  She’s very restful that way.)_

_So he sleeps alone most nights, and sometimes someone comes to knock on his door, or he goes to knock on someone else’s, and then it's breathless moans and warm hands and sweet release – sometimes laughter, if he’s lucky, sometimes even a few hours of sleep with another body pressed up against his – but it’s not the same, it’s not what he wants, it’s not_ repairing _anything.  It’s a bandage, only; masks the visible wound but does nothing for the bleeding below the surface._

_But it’s better than being alone._

_There are only seven of them, and it makes sense to take quarters close together, rather than spreading out all over the ring; but none of them grew up on this station, so they feel weird about it at first, moving into the Councilors’ wing.  It kind of feels like trespassing.  Raven eventually takes Jaha’s apartment; he was an engineer too, and there’s a nice workstation in one corner where she immediately makes herself at home.  Murphy claims Diana Sydney’s; it has windows on two sides, not just one, and what does he care about the ghosts of the Unity Day explosion?  He didn’t lose anyone. Who the fuck cares.  And besides, Emori likes the view._

_No one takes the Griffins’ quarters._

_It feels haunted, somehow.  Or perhaps “sacred” is a better word.  A place you visit to pay homage, but not a place to make yourself at home.  No one ever says it out loud, they just simply agree in respectful silence to leave it uninhabited.  Everyone wanders through it from time to time, silent and alone, running light fingertips over the traces of Clarke’s old life: drawings pinned to the wall, clothes folded in drawers.  They all do this, even Echo and Emori, who knew her least.  Perhaps it’s more curiosity than grief, for them, but it’s a compelling force nonetheless.  It’s roomy and spacious, probably the nicest suite besides the Chancellor’s, but no one can bring themselves to disturb it.  Clarke Griffin’s ghost still lives here.  In a way, it’s their memorial._

_Bellamy takes Marcus Kane’s room._

_It’s spartan, clean, devoid of the warmth or traces of personality that made the Griffins’ quarters a home.  Just furniture and a few books and some clothes.  Kane didn’t grow up on the Ring; he was from somewhere poor and scrappy with no view, just like Bellamy.  They gave him these quarters when he was elected to the Council.  Bellamy wonders if somewhere in the smoking wreckage of a crashed station they never found, there’s a room that belonged to Vera Kane where there might have been more traces of Marcus left.  But this is what he has, so he takes it._

_Kane hasn’t slept in this bed since they crashed the Ark to Earth over a year ago, which means Bellamy knows it’s been too long for the sheets and pillows to actually smell like him, it’s just imagination; but it’s a faint kind of comfort anyway.  He feels the same when he wanders into the Griffins’ quarters and reaches out to brush the faded, neatly tucked-in comforter of Abby’s bed.  He knows which side was hers, even without any traces left of either herself or Jake on either bedside table.  But in their bed, at Arkadia, Abby always slept on the right, Marcus on the left.  Bellamy, when he slept with them, was in the middle._

_Kane’s bunk on the Ark is much smaller, and that makes Bellamy sad.  These are a single man’s quarters.  These are the rooms of someone who didn’t share a bed, didn’t share space, didn’t keep memories, didn’t envision anyone else ever sharing his life with him.  When that Marcus Kane lived in these rooms, Bellamy thinks, before he crashed to earth and everything changed, he must have believed it would be like this for the rest of his life.  He would have had no idea there was so much love waiting for him.  He would have thought this narrow, cold bed would be all there ever was._

_Bellamy tries hard not to think about their last few weeks on earth – tries not to think about the black rain and the radio and the Rover, or about Clarke and the door and his race against time with Abby, or about Praimfaya shorting out the bunker’s comm unit before he had a chance to say goodbye to anyone besides his sister._

_Octavia was the wedge that had come between him and Kane, the force that had caused them to begin drifting apart.  They had both seen the darkness growing inside her, they had both wanted to stop it, and if they loved her less it might have been a pain for which they could give each other solace.  But it was too much, for both of them.  Bellamy was unwilling to receive comfort, and Kane unwilling to ask for it from someone in more pain than he was.  So they retreated from each other; and nothing Abby could do – particularly not from such a far distance, on Becca’s island, with so much on her mind – could mend it._

_He’d gotten a goodbye with Abby, at least.  He couldn’t kiss her, or even touch her, because Clarke was there and that moment belonged rightly to the mother and daughter, not to him.  But he’d said as much as he could say with his eyes, and so had she. It wasn’t enough, but it was something.  Even though he’d only thought he was leaving for one day._

_He was supposed to have five years in that bunker to make things up with Kane.  
_

_He’d left without knowing he would never come back._

_He tries not to think about this, as he drifts off to sleep in Kane’s bed, starlight pouring in through the big square window.  He tries to think about the better times instead.  Sometimes it’s easier alone than with someone else in the bed beside him; sometimes when he’s alone, his hand drifts under the covers, and he loses himself imagining Kane’s big, powerful body blanketing his, Kane’s mouth on his skin, Kane’s hands on his cock, Kane’s warm brown eyes smiling down at him as he cradles Bellamy’s cheek.  His sensory memory is potent and visceral, and as he strokes himself he can remember everything – from the taste of Kane’s sweat, to the delicious ache of soreness he always felt the morning after._

_It always works, this way.  He comes every time, and then falls asleep, imagining the familiar male scent he misses with an almost palpable ache, buried deep within the pillows and sheets._

_If he had known that the last time he saw Marcus Kane would have really been the last time he saw him, he knows now he would have done everything differently._

_But now it’s too late._

_All he can do is hope, and stare out the window down at the earth on fire below, and pray that the people he loves trapped underground are safe._

_All he can do is wait._


	3. "An Undivided Love"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _O troubled dust concealing_  
>  _An undivided love_  
>  _The heart beneath is teaching_  
>  _To the broken heart above_  
>  _O see the darkness yielding_  
>  _That tore the light apart_  
>  _Come healing of the reason_  
>  _Come healing of the heart_
> 
> \--Leonard Cohen

**NOW**

When he woke, Kane was still sleeping.

Gently removing the makeshift bandages, Bellamy examined the wounds again and was pleased to find no new fresh blood since last night.  The cuts on his chest were healing nicely, pink and clean and with no traces of infection, and both his pulse and his breathing were healthy and normal.  The bruising around his shoulder was not a pretty sight, but the joint was aligned cleanly in its socket; recovery might be painful, but the damage wouldn’t be permanent. 

“You saved his life,” he heard Abby’s voice in his mind, warm with pride and affection, and he was forced to admit – reluctantly – that he had.

He felt ill all over again, recalling what a narrow escape it had been _(What if they’d been five minutes later? What if no one had spotted the hostage in the woods? What if they’d gone back to Polis and left Kane here alone, in enemy hands?)_ , and suddenly it was too painful to be this close to him.  Bellamy pulled his clothes, boots and one of the blankets out of the back of the Rover and set them near the fire, suddenly glad he’d been the one to wake first so he could conceal the signs of his own weakness, his own yearning.  How fucking _selfish,_ to indulge himself in the sweet comfort of Kane’s skin against his own, when it was his own damn fault that Jackson had to pull a bullet out of Abby’s flesh because he’d been too slow to spot the shooter.  Abby was wounded, and Kane didn’t even know, and if anything happened to her . . .

He silenced the thoughts by trying to think of things to do, refilling all the water flasks and stoking the fire back up to take off the chill and rummaging through Clarke’s stores for breakfast.  When he returned from his second sojourn to the mouth of the cave to search for dry kindling, he found Kane wide awake and waiting for him.

“Hi,” said Bellamy hesitantly, kneeling down by the fire to fuss with it unnecessarily, buying himself some time to think of more to say.

“Hi,” Kane said back, slowly maneuvering himself down from the open back of the Rover to try out whether or not he could stand on his own. 

“How are you feeling?”

“Lucid,” said Kane, testing his shoulder’s range of motion and wincing a little as he raised and lowered it.  “Better than last night.”

“I lied to you,” Bellamy said without looking up.  “Last night.  When I said Abby and Octavia were okay.  I _hope_ they are, but I don’t _know.”_

Kane was silent for a long moment.  Then, “Start at the beginning,” he said evenly, and stood with his arms folded, waiting.

So Bellamy did.

He told him everything they’d learned from Octavia and everything they’d learned from Clarke and about how the groups had unexpectedly found each other on the way to their rescue mission, and why the Rover looked like someone had been living out of it, because someone had.  He told him about the other Rover that had made its way back to Polis by now with Clarke and Raven at the helm and how the rain had bought them another few days of safety even while leaving the two of them trapped in the cave.  And then he went back even further, filling the echo of Kane's continued silence, and told him about his last day on earth, about Clarke staying behind, how they thought they’d lost her but she’d somehow found a way to survive and had even found the world’s last living Nightblood.  He told Kane all the things he’d been saving up to tell Abby, about how her daughter had saved their lives, how brave she’d been, how smart she was, about the lock of Clarke’s hair he’d found in Abby’s bedside table and brought back for her.

It went on for a long time before he finally sensed movement out of the corner of his eye and saw Kane slowly making his way across the floor of the cave towards him.  “Bellamy,” he said gently.  “Stop.”

Bellamy stopped.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kane reminded him.  “None of this was your fault.  You did everything right.”  Bellamy couldn’t look at him.  “You didn’t fail Clarke by leaving her behind.  You didn’t fail Abby by not being able to stop a bullet.  And you wouldn’t have failed me, even if you had gotten there too late.  None of this was your fault.  You did everything right.  And I’m grateful.”

“If we could leave right now and go after her –"

“I know,” said Kane, voice edged in helplessness.  “I know.  But you were right.  We’d never get the Rover to shore.  And we only have two.  We can't risk this one.”

“I just wish we could _do_ something.”

“We can,” Kane said firmly.  “We can trust Jackson.  He’s never let Abby down in his whole damn life and he won’t start today.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry.”  He caught himself awkwardly.  “I mean . . . never mind.”  He distracted himself by pulling out a flask and a handful of dried meat to hand to Kane.  “Here,” he said.  “Breakfast.”

Kane took it gratefully, and chewed in silence for awhile, wandering up to the entrance to the cave to look outside before meandering back.  He was clearly preoccupied with thoughts of Abby, just as Bellamy was, but trying not to show it.  When he returned, he handed Bellamy back the flask of water before noticing the blanket, clothes and boots piled haphazardly beside the fire.

“Is this where you slept?” he asked, his tone unreadable.

“Yes,” Bellamy lied, too embarrassed now in the cold light of day to admit the truth, to reveal how badly he'd needed comfort.  Kane regarded him in silence for a long time, but said nothing. “I’m going to go wash up,” he said abruptly, changing the subject to escape Kane's watchful eyes.  “Clarke has some soap in that bag of hers.  Don’t think she’ll mind if we borrow it.”

Kane nodded.  “I’ll build up the fire, and take my turn when you’re done," he said, voice flat and a little distant, just another measure of how overwhelmingly things had changed between them.  Though whether it was because Kane felt uncomfortable with the thought of seeing Bellamy's naked body again, or Bellamy seeing his own, he couldn't tell.  Before, it would have been a matter of course for them to bathe together. They’d done it often; steam and hot water made Kane amorous, and he’d liked kissing Bellamy’s wet mouth under the heavy warm spray as their soapy hands moved all over each other’s bodies before each gripping hard onto the other’s cock.  There was no shame or distance between them, no formality, no square inch of the other's body they didn't know.

But that was a long time ago, and it seemed a thousand miles from Kane’s mind. Whatever they were to each other now, Kane had decided they were people who bathed separately, at a discreet distance, and that told Bellamy more than mere words could.  He felt guilty all over again for his transgression of last night, for his selfishness in wanting any part of Kane for himself when there was no room in the other man's thoughts for anything but Abby.

Abby, who he'd lived with and loved every day for six years, just the two of them, a unit unto themselves, with Bellamy an infinite expanse of empty black space away from them.  Remembered with fondness, but not _part_ of them anymore. 

He took the soap and bathing rags from Clarke's satchel and made his way to the mouth of the cave, blinking back tears.  Okay.  So that was it.  It was over.  Kane had as good as said so. 

It was stupid to feel this shitty about it.  Stupid to let it get under his skin.  Stupid to have hoped.

He undressed slowly, leaving his clothes in a pile behind some boulders, wondering if he turned around if he would see Kane watching, moving towards him, seeking a glimpse of his naked body.  But Kane was just where he'd left him - all the way inside the cave, kneeling by the fire with his back resolutely turned toward Bellamy, his face hidden in shadow.

Bellamy turned away and plunged headfirst into the icy stream, letting the cold rain pour down from the skies through his hair and over his face, trying to clear his troubled mind.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

When he returned, shivering in his now-damp shorts and t-shirt, Kane had built up the fire enough to take the edge off the chill.  "Thanks," said Bellamy, but got nothing more than a distracted nod of acknowledgement in return, as Kane wordlessly took the damp rags and soap he offered, and went to go bathe himself.  Bellamy didn't follow.

Kane was gone for a long time, which seemed a good sign; Bellamy had done the best he could to clean the wounds that were visible, but he had no idea how many he’d missed.  Clean water could only do them good, and the bracing cold might put some life back into him.

Kane had departed for his bath dressed as Bellamy had left him last night - shirtless and barefoot, wearing his worn and leather-patched trousers - but returned wearing only his cotton shorts, apparently as reluctant as Bellamy had been to immediately wrestle back into a pair of wet jeans. He laid them out to dry on the back of the Rover, along with the washrags, then made his way towards the fire where Bellamy sat next to a pile of food.  Kneeling down to take a piece of dried meat, Kane ran a hand through his wet hair, almost absentmindedly, flicking drops of water onto Bellamy’s skin.

“Careful,” Bellamy admonished him, “you’ll put the fire out.”

“Well, give me something to dry it with, then,” Kane responded irritably.  “What happened to my shirt?”

Bellamy said nothing, but pointed to the heap of blood-soaked makeshift bandages he’d peeled off Kane’s wounds that morning.  “There it is, if you want it,” he snapped, not sure why all his emotions had suddenly coalesced into anger, but unwilling to fight it.  "Be my guest."

“Oh,” said Kane after a long pause.

“Yeah.”

“Well, then, never mind.”

“Yeah.”

“You sound angry at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Bellamy . . .”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

“Just drop it, Kane.”

“You lied to me,” Kane said, startling him.  “You and I don’t do that with each other, Bellamy.  You lied to me, and I’d like to know why.”

“I had to,” he fired back defensively, standing up from the fire so he could back away and put a little distance between them, suddenly feeling off-balance.  “You’d have done the same thing. You should have seen you last night, you were practically delirious, and there was nothing either of us could do for her, so there didn’t seem any point in giving you something else to panic about.”

Kane shook his head. “I don’t mean the lie about Abby.  I meant when I asked if this was where you slept last night.”

Bellamy’s blood went cold.

When he looked up, the older man was watching him intently, with a maddeningly unreadable expression on his face.  He took a step towards Bellamy, slowly, almost experimentally, but moved no further when he saw Bellamy take a step away.  “You had a lot of things to tell me this morning,” Kane said mildly.  “About Abby.  About Octavia.  About Clarke.  About the prison ship.  About the Nightblood girl.  About everything in the whole world, in fact, that isn’t you and me.”

Bellamy swallowed hard.  “Kane, don’t,” he began, but trailed off, and he didn’t trust himself to say any more than that without his voice breaking.

Kane took a step closer, tentative, nonthreatening, like he was trying not to spook a wild animal.  “Bellamy,” he murmured, his voice low and soft, no longer the strangled rasp of yesterday, but his old voice, his familiar voice, the one Bellamy remembered, warm and dark and rumbling.  “Talk to me.”

“I don’t know where to start,” Bellamy said helplessly.  “I had six years’ worth of things I wanted to say to you and I suddenly can’t think of a single one.”

Kane didn’t say anything, but took another step closer.  Bellamy didn’t meet his eyes, but he also didn’t move away.

“Six years is a long time,” Kane finally said, his voice gentle and a little sad, “and even before that, it had been a long time since there was anything . . . intimate . . . between us.  If that’s not what you want me to be to you anymore, Bellamy, all you have to do is tell me.  I’ll be your friend.  I’ll be your support.  The way I always have.  If that’s all you want from me, I can live with that.  It’s enough just to have you back.”

“Kane, stop.”

“It’s okay,” the other man said.  “I understand.  You don’t have to say it.”  He gave a small, weary exhale that was almost a laugh.  “You can’t even _look_ at me,” he pointed out, sadly.  “I should have put it together sooner.”

“I slept in your bed every night for six years,” Bellamy interrupted him recklessly, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. 

Kane froze, eyes wide and stunned. "You did _what?"_

“I lived in your room.  On the Ring.  Echo tried to claim it, first, but I wouldn’t let her.  I didn’t say it was because it was yours, not until later, I didn't know how to explain it to her. I just . . . I couldn’t let anyone else have it.  It wasn’t enough, but it was all there was left of you, and it was the only way –"

But he never finished the end of the sentence.  Kane closed the distance between them in three long strides and then suddenly there was nothing left in the world except the shock of a warm mouth pressed against his own, as Kane wrapped his one good arm around Bellamy’s waist and kissed him until neither of them could breathe.

It was somehow simultaneously as though they were releasing six years of pent-up electricity, and as though no time had passed at all.  The heat and pressure of Kane’s mouth on his was achingly familiar.  He even tasted the same.  Bellamy’s arms wrapped around the other man’s back, bringing their bodies so close together that each could feel the other’s heartbeat, and before he even knew what had happened Kane had him backed up against the cool stone wall.

When they finally came up for air, Kane pulled away just enough to meet Bellamy's gaze, hand sliding up his back to cradle his cheek.  "I missed you," he murmured, a little breathlessly.  "God help me, Bellamy, I missed you so much."  Bellamy didn't answer, but closed his eyes, leaning in to the gentle caress as Kane's fingers stroked his skin.  "I thought I was dreaming, last night," he confessed.  "When you finally untied me and I saw your face.  Maybe dreaming, or maybe dead. It didn't feel real.  And then I woke up in the middle of the night, with my shoulder hurting like hell, and your breath on my skin like no time had passed at all.  I was so happy.  I thought you'd come back to me.  But then, when you were so distant, all morning . . . and when I asked, and you lied . . . I thought, he must have slept in the Rover just to stay warm, but he's afraid to give me the wrong idea.  And it broke my heart, a little.  It felt like losing you all over again."

"It wasn't just to stay warm," Bellamy said.  "It was because I wanted to.  Because I missed you.  But it felt . . . selfish.  Because of Abby.  Like I didn't have the right."

"You thought you weren't entitled to comfort," Kane said gently, as Bellamy looked away.  "Still putting yourself last, as always."  And then he folded Bellamy into his arms, pulling him close, and running his hand lightly up and down along Bellamy's spine, soothing him into stillness, as all the fight went out of Bellamy's tired bones and he melted into Kane's embrace, finally letting go, letting himself be held, letting himself be cared for, letting someone else who was just as strong as he was step in and bear his weight.

They stood like that for a long time, Bellamy's head resting on the other man's shoulder, feeling the warmth of Kane's palm against his back through the thin cotton of his t-shirt, before Bellamy turned his head ever so slightly to brush his lips against the hollow of Kane's throat, and found himself rewarded by the sound of a startled, sharp inhalation of pleasure.  He did it again, harder this time, nuzzling in deeper and deeper, lips and tongue against warm skin, kissing his way up from shoulder to throat to jaw to cheek before finding Kane's mouth again and disappearing back into it with a low, hungry moan of need.  Kane didn't hold back, opening up instantly beneath Bellamy's kiss, tongue frantic and searching, his good hand clutching wildly at the younger man's hair.

“So that’s what it feels like to kiss me with a beard,” Kane remarked when they finally parted again, running affectionate fingers through the coarse dark scruff along Bellamy’s jaw.  “I like it.”

“Me too,” Bellamy murmured back, a trifle mischievously.  “Been thinking about it every night for the past six years.”

A warm, rosy flush swept over Kane's cheeks, realizing what Bellamy meant, and his eyes went dark and hazy, the way they did when he was overcome with desire. He bent his head to press a row of hot little open-mouthed kisses up Bellamy’s collarbone, making him shiver.  “Did you think about it in my bed?”  Bellamy nodded.  “And did you -”  He broke off, unable to finish, but Bellamy nodded again, guilty and mortified and aroused at once, shocked at himself for daring to admit it.  “Oh God,” Kane whispered, seizing Bellamy’s face again for another kiss, hot and hungry and desperate, pressing in even closer so Bellamy could feel the heavy swell of his cock stirring to life inside the thin cotton of his shorts. 

“Can we do this?” Bellamy whispered.  “Is this okay?  Without Abby?  Are we . . . is this breaking the rules?”

“You’ll probably have to make it up to her,” Kane pointed out dryly.

“I can live with that.”

“Then don’t stop,” Kane whispered, letting his tongue graze the tendon running from Bellamy’s ear to his collarbone, making his whole body go hot and cold all over.  “We can’t get to her.  We can’t do anything for her from here.  There’s nothing to do except pace back and forth and wait for the rain to stop and feel sick with worry.  We can have this.  Just for a little while.  We can let ourselves have this.”

“You sound like her,” Bellamy told him, eyes drifting closed, body arching up off the wall to feel the press of Kane’s cock against his own.

“I’m learning,” Kane murmured.  “She’s better at seizing the moment than I am.  If it was her here instead of me, she’d have you on your back already.”

“Is that what you want?”

“I’m almost fifty,” Kane chuckled, nuzzling into the hollow of Bellamy’s throat, “and I’m covered in knife wounds.  One thing at a time.”

“I’ll go easy on you,” Bellamy grinned back, pulling away to pivot their bodies and back Kane up against the wall, then dropping to his knees in front of him.

“Oh God,” Kane exhaled in dizzy pleasure as Bellamy tugged his still-damp shorts off and lifted the sleek, heavy cock to his lips with both hands.

It was even better than he remembered.

He took his time about it, getting warmed up, tracing long lazy trails with his tongue up and down the shaft, bathing it in wetness, nudging lightly at the sensitive slit to make Kane shudder.  He tasted clean, like river water, and salty, like skin.  His cheeks flushed pink with the realization that he had missed the taste of Kane’s cock, actually _missed_ it, had craved it sometimes with an almost bodily hunger.  He’d been unwilling to admit it to himself until now, it seemed such a raw and needy thing to acknowledge, but it was true.  He’d always liked sex, he’d always been good at this, even before Kane and Abby came into his life, but he’d never thought of himself as the kind of person who could need another person’s body this much.  But _fuck,_ it felt _right,_ it felt like coming home, to feel that heavy, hot weight slide between his lips and over his tongue to fill his mouth and throat completely.  To have Marcus inside him again. 

“You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this since you left,” Kane whispered, running his good hand through Bellamy’s hair.  “How much I’ve missed you.”

Bellamy didn’t pause to answer, though he looked up at Marcus with a smile as he slowly, slowly, worked his way down, opening his mouth and throat to take him all, all, all the way.  He was so much – he had always been so much – Bellamy knew his jaw would be sore later, six years out of practice – but oh God, it was worth it when his lips reached the base of Kane’s shaft and he felt the man’s whole body contort in stunned pleasure at the gentle brush of Bellamy’s moustache and beard against the impossibly sensitive flesh.

“Oh God,” Kane breathed, closing his eyes.  “Bellamy.  Oh, God, love, don’t stop.”

So Bellamy didn’t.  He lingered there, cupping the heavy mounds in his hand and scratching lightly over them with his fingernails, the way he remembered Marcus liked, then pursing his lips tightly to draw up and down the shaft, bathing the tip in messy, wet kisses.  He didn’t bother to be tidy about it – he wanted Kane wet, after all – and slicked the drops of clear, salty precum trickling out of the slit across the warm, purpling flesh to mix with his saliva.  Kane was flushed, sweating, his chest heaving, his hand frantic where it clutched at Bellamy’s hair, and with the ease born of experience – even after six years’ absence – Bellamy pulled away and rose to his feet just shy of tipping Kane over the edge.

“Are you . . . punishing me . . . for something?” Kane forced out through gritted teeth, swallowing hard, body trembling with pent-up arousal.

“Nah, just warming you up.”

“Bellamy,” said Kane warningly.  “We can’t.”

“We can.”

“Bellamy, I’m _forty-eight years old,_ and you just rescued me from a professional torturer _yesterday._   I’m barely standing upright as it is.”

“We don’t have to do it like _animals,_ Kane.”

“I can’t –“ Kane began, then cut himself off awkwardly, before inhaling deeply to try again.  “Without wishing to presume,” he attempted, hesitantly, “there are . . . things . . . I’m not sure I can manage properly in this condition.”

Bellamy shook his head, smiling, and pressed a warm kiss against his mouth.  “You only think that because you’re used to taking the lead,” he pointed out.  “I think you can handle lying on your back while I do all the work.”

“Oh God, Bellamy, I –"

“Please,” Bellamy whispered, the need in his voice too raw and urgent to ignore, and then neither of them could fight it anymore.

“Yes,” breathed Kane, before seizing the younger man’s mouth in a long, hungry kiss.  “God help me.  Yes.”

Bellamy was as good as his word, gentle and careful, setting Kane up as well as he could on the floor of the Rover with blankets and the rolled-up leather jacket for support, to cushion him against the hard metal, before teasing the head of Kane’s now-hard cock with his tongue to prod forth enough precum to slick up and down the shaft, lubricating it as best he could.

“Show me,” Kane murmured, as Bellamy lifted his head and shifted to kneel between the older man’s thighs.  “Show me how you touched yourself.  When you thought about us.  Up there in my bed.  Make yourself come.”

“Yeah?” Bellamy whispered hoarsely, meeting Kane’s simmering gaze with his own.  “You wanna watch?” 

Kane nodded, eyes traveling down to stare hungrily as Bellamy slowly, deliberately took his own cock in his hand and began to stroke it.  He took his time, savoring the illicit feel of being watched while he took his own pleasure, closing his eyes and sinking into it.  He didn’t worry about being quiet, since any sound they made in here would be muffled by several meters of thick stone and a thunderstorm outside.  There was no need for discretion, so he didn’t bother to bite back the low moans that tumbled out of his lips.  “Does it feel good?” Kane whispered, voice pulsing, and Bellamy nodded.  It felt perfect.  On the Ark, it had been a pale substitute for the thing he really wanted, but he wasn’t alone anymore.  Now it was something shared.  He’d always liked it better when Kane made him come, first, before fucking him; relaxed, softened, sated, it was easier for him to open himself up to take the man’s massive bulk inside.  But they’d never done it this way, with Bellamy in command.  Bellamy making himself come, reveling in his own pleasure, letting Kane watch.  It was unspeakably erotic, and Kane’s cock swelled harder and harder as Bellamy’s hands and his breathing picked up speed together.  But it was more than just foreplay, more than just preparation, and both of them knew it, though it felt too wicked for either of them to say out loud.  

“Are you close?” Kane breathed, his chest heaving, swallowing hard as the slick, hard, pulsing cock in Bellamy’s hand flushed purple-red and began to leak drops of clear precum onto Kane’s belly where the younger man knelt between his spread thighs.  Bellamy nodded, biting his lip, eyes still pressed closed.  “Come for me, love,” Kane ordered him gently.  “Make me wet for you.”

“Fuck,” Bellamy groaned, “oh fuck, yes, fuck, I’m so . . . Kane, I’m . . .”

“You’re doing so good,” Kane whispered, “you’re so beautiful like this, don’t stop, keep going, come for me, Bellamy, come on me, so I can –“

“Yes,” Bellamy gasped hoarsely, hand moving faster and faster, “yes, yes,” and then it was happening.  Stripes of warm white burst forth from the head of his pulsing, twitching cock, and he knew exactly what Kane wanted him to do.  Leaning forward, so his hips pressed against Kane’s own, he let the gleaming white threads of cum stripe across Kane’s own cock, gripping them both together in his slick fists and jerking them both up and down, coating Kane in hot wetness until Bellamy was spent and Kane was dripping. 

“On yourself, too,” Kane whispered, heart pounding, as Bellamy took two dripping wet fingers and reached a hand behind him, sighing with pleasure as he slicked his own entrance with still-warm cum before straddling Kane’s hips and aligning his body over the other man's rock-hard, soaked cock.

“Bellamy,” Kane moaned as the younger man lowered himself bit by bit and Kane’s cock nudged inside him.  He moved as if to sit up, but Bellamy shook his head, planting both palms firmly on Kane’s chest.

“I do all the work,” he reminded him with a crooked smile.  “That was the deal.  Remember?”

“Then for God’s sake, get to work,” Kane panted back, “you’re killing me.”

But anything he might have said next disappeared into thin air when Bellamy shifted his weight, lowered his hips, and the whole of Marcus Kane’s massive cock slipped slickly inside him.

Both men cried out at the same time, raw and ragged, with a pleasure so intense it was nearly pain.  Bellamy gripped Kane’s shoulders so hard his knuckles turned white, bracing himself for balance as he rolled his hips over and over, staring down at the wide dark brown eyes gazing back up at him.  He’d never had Kane like this, never been so completely in control, and it was exhilarating.  He went hard and deep, at first, making Kane groan so forcefully it was nearly a scream, before slowing down to a gentler pace and lifting his hips to let Kane’s cock dip gently out and in, out and in, until sweat beaded on Kane’s forehead and his eyes lost focus, lips moving in a wordless plea. 

“Help me sit up,” Kane finally managed to choke out, between gasps, “I can’t, you’re too far away, I have to –“ 

“Come here,” Bellamy murmured, slipping an arm below Kane’s waist and lifting him smoothly, effortlessly into a seated position, shifting his own weight onto his knees so he could ride the older man’s lap without straining his bruised, injured thighs. 

“Fuck me,” whispered Kane, sinking into Bellamy’s arms, letting his head drop heavily onto the other man’s shoulder, and Bellamy shivered with pleasure.  This was a new Kane, a soft and submissive Kane, a Kane ready to let Bellamy do anything to him.

“Come here,” Bellamy said again, and pulled Kane into his embrace, letting the older man dissolve against him completely, pliant and content and shuddering with pleasure.  Bellamy rode his cock slowly, purposefully, thoroughly, letting them both feel every inch of each other, savoring the feel of this unfamiliar new position. With one knee planted on either side of Kane’s thighs, Bellamy’s body was lifted a few inches to a higher height, allowing the older man’s head to rest comfortably against his chest.  “Bellamy,” Kane sighed, lips moving against his collarbone.  “Bellamy.  Don’t stop.”

Time stood still inside the Rover.  There was nothing left on earth but this.  The whole world had shrunk down to the size of these two bodies rocking against each other over and over again.

Bellamy held Kane tightly, one hand stroking his back, the other caressing his hair, tenderly dominating him the way Kane had done to him the first time they made love, and every time after.  But the roles were reversed now.  Six years had changed Bellamy Blake.  He wasn’t a boy anymore.  He was a man, who could take what he wanted in bed, and he met Kane as an equal for the first time.  There were so few people in the world strong enough for Marcus Kane to let go completely in their arms, and trust them to bear his full weight.  Bellamy had not quite been one of them, when he left; he was too young, Marcus and Abby were too protective of him, too doting. He was the one, then, who had needed tenderness and cherishing.

But the six years of peacetime on the Ark that had given Bellamy a grounded, steady sense of unshakeable calm would have been unrecognizable to the people who spent six years underground in Octavia’s bunker, and Marcus Kane had not had an easy time of it, even before finding himself kidnapped and tortured half to death.  So now it was Bellamy’s turn to offer the healing comfort of strong arms, a warm body, a soft mouth, a steady heartbeat, that Kane had used so many times to soothe the angry young man Bellamy used to be.

“I got you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into Kane’s still-damp hair, stroking his back, letting his hips rise and fall in a deep, steady rhythm, the sweet pressure of Kane’s thick cock stretching him open as it slipped smoothly in and out of him.  “You can let go.  I’m right here.  I got you.”

Kane’s body grew heavier, softer, melting into Bellamy’s own, his breath hot against the younger man’s collarbone, and Bellamy knew he was close.  “Let go,” he whispered again.  “Let it all go.  Come inside me.” Kane mumbled something incoherent, his good arm tightening around Bellamy’s waist, hips beginning to rock upward, but Bellamy stilled him with a hand on his thigh.  No sharp torso movement, not while he was injured.  If he wanted more, Bellamy would give him more, but he would do all the work.

“Deeper?” Bellamy whispered, and felt the man nod weakly against his chest.  So he pressed down, taking another inch, then two, feeling Kane shudder with pleasure in his arms, until finally, panting with exertion, he had taken all of Kane inside.  “Come for me,” he said, fingers carding through Kane’s thick dark hair, pressing kiss after kiss against it.  “Come for me.”

When Kane finally did, erupting with a strangled, shuddering groan, he burst with such force that Bellamy was startled.  He held Kane close, rolling his hips hard and deep, drawing every last drop of cum out of him, until Kane’s entire body was spent, and he sank drowsily back against Bellamy’s chest, boneless and liquid and sated.  Bellamy held him there for a long time, cradling him, stroking his hair, rocking him gently, before finally shifting his weight to lay back down against the rolled-up coat serving as a pillow, and lowering Kane to lie comfortably on top of him, head pillowed on Bellamy’s chest.

It didn’t erase the world outside, the dangers they still faced, the worries still on their mind.  It was sex, not magic.  It couldn’t rewrite time.  But it healed a broken thing inside each of them, something they’d lost even before they’d parted six years ago, the thing that had gone dark and silent as they began to drift apart without having the words to explain why. 

“I said awful things to you,” Bellamy whispered, as Kane drowsed against his chest.  “That night.  In this Rover.”

“No, you didn’t,” said Kane, propping himself up on his good elbow to meet Bellamy’s gaze.  “You said true things that I wasn’t ready to hear.  There’s a difference.”

“I was so angry at you.”

“I know.”

“It wasn’t even about you, it was about Octavia, I just . . .”

“Bellamy, you don’t have to apologize to me,” Kane said softly, pressing a kiss against the younger man’s smoothly muscled shoulder.  “I’m not angry at you.  I never was.”

“I was,” Bellamy said heavily.  “We had so little time left with each other, and we didn’t even know it, and we wasted it hardly being able to look each other in the eye.  I don’t want to do that again.”

“We won’t.”

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye to you.”

“Bellamy, stop,” Kane said.  “I’m not going anywhere.  Neither is Abby.  We’re together again.  It’s going to be all right.”

“I just . . . I didn’t know it would be that hard,” Bellamy confessed.  “Being apart from you for that long.  I thought it would get easier, one day, I thought it would fade, but it never did.”

“It was the same for us,” Kane told him.  “Not a single night went by where we didn’t wish you were there with us.  Where the bed didn’t feel too empty without you in it.”  He leaned in and pressed a soft kiss against Bellamy’s mouth.  “Never again,” he promised.  “From now on, wherever we go, we go together.”

“Together,” Bellamy repeated, as Kane’s drowsy head lowered again, settling against Bellamy’s chest, his breath already evening out into the rhythm of sleep, and he felt the broken thing inside his chest begin to knit itself back together, slowly, stitch by stitch.  If six years of lonely nights was the price of having a love like this, he’d pay it again and again, he thought, as his arms wrapped around Kane’s back.  The pain was worth it, when the healing was this sweet.

“I love you,” he said quietly, though Kane was already too deep in slumber to hear, but just so he could hear himself say it.  “I love you.  I love you.  I love you.”


End file.
